The good people over at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog(and we use term “good” loosely, as how good can a Yankees fan really be?) have projected the final standings for the 2006 baseball season. While all the math is over our head, it appears as though they have used three different models and then averaged the three to predict division champions, wild card teams, league champions and World Series champions. Each of the models was simulated 1000 times. The Diamond Mind model and the Pecotamodels appear to be the most realistic. Diamond Mind, predicts that the D-Rays will win 70 games and Pecota 69. In 1000 seasons, Diamond Mind has the Rays winning one division title and six wild cards, while Pecota predicted zero for both. On the other hand, the final model, Zips, predicts 73 wins with 6 division titles and 4 wild card births. Averaging the three models gives the Rays a record of 71-91, and playoff appearances in 17 out of 3000 seasons or slightly more than 0.5% of the time. Sounds about right.

A few other notes…The Zips model is definitely flawed. This model predicts the Yankees to only have a 28% chance of making the playoffs, while the other two models give values of 77% and 80%. Even those seem a little low. Also, according to the models, the D-Rays should be better than Kansas City (which in two of the models does not make the playoffs at all in 1000 simulations), Florida and Colorado. Hey…its something.